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REVIEW: ALIEN: COVENANT

Alien: Covenant stars Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterson, Billy Crudup, and Danny McBride, as a new crew takes off 10 years after the ill-fated Prometheus. The film, which acts like a follow up of Prometheus, also develops somewhat of its own story. This “prequel-trilogy” of films will lead up to where Alien (1979) begins. But through all its ups and downs, and even the incredible amount of gore, Alien: Covenant leaves us with more questions than answers.

Alien: Covenant, takes us on an adventure as the crew of the ship Covenant, traveling with 2,000 passengers and baby fetuses, look for a habitable planet to populate. But after the ships receive a mysterious message, the Covenant sets out for the planet where the mysterious message came from. As they land on this newly discovered planet, they are greeted with, yes you named it, aliens. These aliens are not the full grown Xenomorphs that we all know and love. No, these aliens are fresh aliens still going through the process of growth. But never the less, they’re still incredibly deadly. So the action is good, but the storyline?

This is a film that is coming up with its story as it goes. If you remember, right after Prometheus came out, there were rumors that the next film would be titled Prometheus: Paradise Lost. This would continue the story of Elizabeth Shaw and her AI friend, David, as Elizabeth continues to search for her creators. But as soon as the filming for Alien: Covenant began, all that was thrown out the window. News of Noomi Rapace not being included in the film was a surprise at the least. So with all that said, it looked like this was going to be a whole new adventure. But low and behold, the news came out that Rapace was reprising her role in the new film, with additional information about what happened to Elizabeth and David. But why do I say all this? Why do I keep going back to Prometheus? After all, this isn’t a Prometheus review. I take it back, because this film needed to be one thing or another. It set out to be different, but it seemed like half way through the writing process, the writers decided to incorporate more of the Prometheus plotline into this new film. This leads me to my point. Inserting the Prometheus story into Alien: Covenant, felt forced. Alien: Covenant should have touched upon Prometheus and gone forward.

Michael Fassbender plays both Walter, a new and fully updated AI with all the bells and whistles, and David, the same AI from Prometheus. Fassbender does a fantastic job playing these robots, even in the same scene at times. The scenes in which both David and Walter are in the same room was unbelievably flawless, considering Fassbender was playing both characters. I will say, Alien: Covenant is a beautiful film, and the CGI looks incredibly real. The sets and the on location shooting really did do its job as the environment looks to be playing another character. The acting is decent, which doesn’t say much. McBride, who plays pilot, Tennessee, is actually really good. He plays both serious, broken-hearted, and crazy. Katherine Waterson, who plays a Ripley type character, does a good job being that strong woman in a man’s world. But as a whole, I didn’t find her interesting. Her one bad ass scene, didn’t really “wow” me. As for the other characters, I wanted to learn more about them. To really get emotionally attached to them. But after the few alien attacks happened, I didn’t care who lived and who died.

It’s hard to rate this film, because I felt so many things didn’t work out according to plan. But overall, this film follows the same recipe as all the other Alien movies, which if you love it, you’ll love Alien: Covenant, too. This film is not at all bad, but I left the theatre will more questions and a tad bit disappointed.